Sports fan. Connoisseur of good music (especially on vinyl). Consumer of the finest craft beers. Environmental activist. History geek. Dudeist Priest. Hunter S. Thompson junkie. And I write a little. Mostly though, I’m a dad. But I am unlike my dad. I am still the breadwinner, but laundry, cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, hugging, crying, disciplining and nurturing are also part of my routine. I am a domestic machine…I am, like many dads of my generation, The Domestic Warrior.

Saturday, January 21, 2017

A Gen-Xer’s Perspective

As published in The County Times (countytimes.somd.com)

By Ronald N. Guy Jr.

Once you’ve been around long enough to develop a
generational identity, it’s common (because humans are curious) to ponder living
life in a different era. I’ve done it, not
because of a desire to escape reality via Doc Brown’s DeLorean, but because it’s
fascinating to imagine navigating a past or some futuristic, Jetson’s existence
(if my mind can sufficiently expand to consider the possibilities).

With four generations of my family still on earth (two
off my stern, me and one off my bow), I’m at the perfect moment for this
exercise: I’ve acquired a decent database of personal experiences, am aware of
recent history and am cognizant of the speed with which the world is changing. I missed The Roaring 20’s, The Great
Depression, Pearl Harbor and the national euphoria that followed the defeat of
the Axis Powers in World War II – experiences my grandparents, members of The
Greatest Generation, lived. My parents, Baby
Boomers born in the late-1940s, dealt with the fear of nuclear war, Vietnam,
Watergate and the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and
Martin Luther King Jr. But boy did they
get to enjoy the best music – Elvis Presley, James Brown, Bob Dylan, Chuck
Berry, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.

Born in 1972, I’m a member of Generation X, a comparatively
small mass of humanity experts will tell you is cynical and disaffected. We have been consistently lied to by
politicians, lack a great military accomplishment and will witness the erosion
of American global dominance (militarily and economically). We won’t do as well as our parents – Boomers
– but will be left to bear their financial burden while simultaneously coping
with the perceived entitlement of Millennials.
It’s enough to feel like “generation screwed”. But I don’t.
Generation X, while arguably not overtly special in any discernable way,
is incredibly unique. Change my date of
birth? Never. Here’s why.

X is a generation of overlappers. We remember televisions with antennas and channel
dials but were quick to embrace the digital era and high-definition (HD) technology. Our first calls were on landline telephones
attached to cords; now we are masters of smart phones. We’ve seen a bad guy defeated – U.S.S.R. –
and become an antagonist again – Russia. We grew up driving stick shifts and are on the
cusp of self-driving cars. Segregation
was a defeated evil, not a reality. The
first high school paper we wrote was generated on a typewriter; our last
college paper was drafted in Microsoft Word and emailed to our professors at
the completion of an on-line class.

But every generation has its before and afters, its technological
and social overlaps. What makes Generation
X unique is that it straddles the Information Age and its revolution in human
communication. Gen-Xers came of age
before the internet and have, unlike most members of preceding generations, embraced
its possibilities as adults. We’re
fluent in text-speak, social media savants, proficient multi-taskers and
capable consumers of today’s limitless data.
But we can still hold face-to-face conversations with other humans, survive
in a world without instant access to everything and enjoy disconnecting from
the grid.

Which leads to the obvious and long-simmering
question: What does this dribble have to do with sports? Well, a lot…I think. Gen-Xers…we grew up without ESPN, let alone
ESPN2, ESPNews, ESPNU or ESPN Deportes.
We mined our stats from newspapers and encyclopedias and learned about
players by reading press guides and the backs of baseball cards. Following sports took time and dedication; it
takes but a few clicks now. The mystery
is mostly gone (not so good) but the growth of sports into a pop culture phenomena
is undeniably super-cool.

Millennials and certainly Generation Z sports fans probably
feel sorry for my one-time plight. But they
should be jealous. I’m about to toggle
between The World Series and Sunday Night Football – both in primetime and in HD,
of course. For them, this is just how
it’s always been; I’m old enough to know it hasn’t and to appreciate the journey
to this amazing moment.

The point? These
are extraordinary times - and not just for sports fans. Don’t be convinced otherwise.